Protecting New York City from the effects of climate change
Hurricane Henry and Ida did not directly hit New York City, but they both made us soaked. The rain in Ada was so heavy that the city experienced a fatal flash flood. It was extreme weather without the effects of rising sea levels, but our subway was still flooded and people died in basement apartments. Our poor mayor blamed the weatherman and tried to push the jar down on the road again.Although funding is available and plans have been made, what the New York City government has been lacking Sense of urgency Regarding climate adaptation.Approximately a city 600 miles of coastline, Billions or even trillions of dollars in infrastructure and built environment are the sitting ducks of the destruction caused by extreme weather events. We need to base ourselves in wartime and concentrate on protecting our cities from wind, heat, cold and water. Although my focus here is on the five boroughs of New York City, this is a regional issue that requires coordinated solutions across political jurisdictions.
During the London Blitz of World War II, residents knew that as soon as the air raid alarm sounded, it was time to go to the shelter quickly. Last week, many of us heard our phones wailing during the storm, but none of us knew what to do or what the sound meant. Therefore, the first line of defense against extreme weather is to educate the public on what to do when floods, high winds, high temperatures, or blizzards arrive or have already arrived. GPS and other tools should be used to develop more sophisticated warning systems to provide specific instructions to the public in specific locations. Police and other emergency personnel should develop and implement a mobilization plan so that it can be implemented when a weather emergency is predicted. Some of them already exist. Obviously, more is needed.
Next, we need to develop a system to improve the maintenance of our drainage system. The garbage accumulated on the sewer grid must be cleaned up regularly. Other potential rainwater clogging points must also be cleared more frequently. The third is to improve the urban drainage system. Too many cities are made up of impervious surfaces and require more green infrastructure. Of course, this month, even the earth was soaked by the rain. The goals that green infrastructure can achieve are limited. This means that water storage tanks and pumps must be designed and installed throughout the city. A five-zone drainage system worth billions of dollars must be built. Just as the city built a huge water supply system and public transportation system in the 20th century, we must improve those older infrastructures to cope with the 21st century.Yingshi-The challenge of the century, we must build a system and a set of engineering structures of wetlands, green spaces, dunes, seawalls, pipelines and pumps to prevent our coastlines and streets from being flooded, and to ensure that sewage is discharged into our waterways Get processed before.
Some colleagues in my Earth Institute have been discussing the need for a managed retreat from places with fragile climates. There must be some houses that should be abandoned because they are destined to flood due to rising sea levels. But this is a rare exception, not the norm. If water is the only danger we face, retreat may make sense, but we also need to face wind and forest fires. Where are we going to retreat? High-altitude areas usually have streams and forests, which are susceptible to forest fires caused by drought and floods caused by storms. In any case, New York City is too valuable to give up. Our communities are priceless, and our built environment is more valuable than what we have lost. For New York City, our approach is best summarized in the words of Bruce Springsteen: “Don’t retreat… Don’t surrender.” We have nowhere to go anyway.
While we are investing a lot of resources to adapt to climate change, we must also work to mitigate its root causes. We need to decarbonize New York City, and then export our technology, policies, and organizational capabilities to other cities in the world to help them reduce greenhouse gases. Climate change is a ubiquitous problem that no country or community can solve. Human beings participate in it together. COVID-19 is a testament to the interconnectedness of our global society and the need for us to jointly respond to common threats. Climate change is a similar problem.
COVID-19 can be combated with vaccines and new therapies under development. These must be shared on a global scale. If the virus is to be controlled, rich countries must pay for vaccines and treatments for poor countries. Climate change can be dealt with through renewable energy and fast-developing energy production and storage technologies. This must also be shared with developing countries. Countries like China must resist the temptation to fund coal-fired power plants and other fossil fuel technologies in developing countries. Everyone must solve the problem of climate change on a global scale.
But climate adaptation can and must be addressed locally. New York City is a place where the cost of living is high, but we New Yorkers endure the cost because we are addicted to the city. We like rhythm, variety, vitality and craziness. This is a place where great ideas, art, technology, and wealth are created. Some of this wealth must now be used to defend against extreme weather, which has clearly begun and will get worse before it improves. But we need new and innovative ideas to solve the problem of climate adaptation.
Our new mayor should recruit the most creative engineers from universities and professional engineering companies in New York City, and come up with innovative, cost-effective ideas to deal with these growing threats. In the post-Sandy period, when this issue became an important part of the political agenda, some ideas and plans had been formulated. Compared with the current mayor’s commitment to climate adaptation, these ideas and new ideas must be combined with a greater sense of urgency. In addition to the engineering plan, we also need a financial plan to determine specific income to fund projects that take at least ten years to complete. Let us invite some great financial talents in the city to develop realistic business plans to design, build and maintain our climate protection system.
In the mid-1970s, when New York City was on the verge of bankruptcy, then Governor Hugh Carey called together labor unions, Wall Street, real estate developers, and elected officials to develop a financial plan to save the city. Everyone worked together, and within ten years, the city’s financial status was good. We need Erik Adams to bring key stakeholders together to solve this problem. He must appoint a well-known “climate czar” and authorize him to lead decarbonization and climate adaptation efforts. New York City is capable of solving this problem. It can find money to build anything we need. The missing element is political leadership and a firm commitment to keep climate adaptation at the top of the political agenda for the next decade.
The other option is more destruction, destruction and death. Just like homeowners pay regular bills for water and sewage treatment, I would be surprised if a user-based tax structure cannot appear here. Adaptation to the climate is expensive, and money will not fall with the rain. There are many problems in this city: homelessness, poverty, crime and education, just to name a few. However, if we are really underwater, none of these problems can be solved. The past few weeks are just an example of what might happen. The climate crisis and the extreme weather it brings will get worse before it improves. The survival of New York City depends on our ability to ultimately deal with the climate adaptation crisis before us.
